My Bloody Valentine, Spectrum @ The Concourse, 9/30/08  

by hardrockchick [about 1 year, 4 months ago.]

It was supposed to be the show of the year.

After a 16 year hiatus, My Bloody Valentine was coming to make many a San Franciscan’s high school dreams come true. The anticipation was great.

I had never been to The Concourse for a show before, and yes, I knew of the bad reviews. But I’m a I’ll-try-anything-once-I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it kind of girl. Well, this place is not a concert hall, it is concert hell.

Unless you are in the very front or along the ‘balcony’ rails, you will not see the band. Mind you, this place holds 10,000 or something, so that is leaving a lot of people viewless. And the sound- while probably great for many bands- it was great for the opener- was obscene for MBV. I loves me some loud, but this was like I wanna tear my hair out and kill people loud.

Spectrum opened, and while they sounded nice, I was too distracted about the horrible venue to give a shit. And when I was able to catch a glimpse of the stage, I saw that the guitarist sits down to play. Uh-uh.

I only enjoyed MBV’s first song, ‘I Only Said’, and that was probably pure adrenaline/anticipation. And then maybe ‘Only Shallow’. I’ve never seen so many people bail on a show before. They passed out earplugs at the door, but that was not enough. I know it is supposed to be loud, but this was stupid. Perhaps if you were in the very center you could escape, but it was even ridiculous in the back where the band looked like ants. The strobe lights were also really strong, so the combination was nausea inducing. And the band has no stage energy- and I didn’t expect them to, they are shoegaze- so just standing there with this onslaught of noise and light is an interesting dichotomy. But apparently it’s one that pisses me right off. And that masturbatory 20 minute drone session at the end? I didn’t find that interesting or impressive. It wasn’t dynamic enough to go on for 2 minutes.

At $50, this show felt like a money hungry reunion tour. To quote Saul Williams, “I want my money back”. If they just wanted to punish their fans, they narrowly missed the Folsom Street Fair.

SF Weekly calls it the best show of the year? Hahahahahahaha.

Presumed Setlist:
I Only Said
When You Sleep
You Never Should
(When You Wake) You’re Still In a Dream
Cigarette In Your Bed
Come In Alone
Only Shallow
Thorn
Nothing Much to Lose
To Here Knows When
Slow
Soon
Feed Me With Your Kiss
You Made Me Realise, with 20 minutes of crap drone

OVERALL: 3/10
MBV performance: 3/10
Spectrum performance: 5/10
venue (The Concourse): -1 trillion/10
crowd/scene: 9.5/10
value ($50/ticket): 1/10
memorable: 8/10

Genre(s): My Musical Adventures

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